(Ottawa, Canada) — For the last two days, I’ve been in Ottawa, the capital city of Canada, and the invitation of various Members of Parliament and Cabinet Members in Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government. I’ve come to thank these leaders for Canada’s extraordinary international support for the State of Israel — I have long argued that PM Harper is the most pro-Israel leader in the world — and to discuss with them the dangers ahead with regards to Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas and most serious Iran and its nuclear weapons program. More on that in a few days when my meetings are complete.

For now we have new developments to process — namely that Israel’s Minister for Intelligence and Strategic Affairs is publicly saying that Iran is “very close” to crossing the red line, and is preparing to build 30 nuclear warheads a year. Such analysis undoubtedly reflects the view of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as Steinitz is a very close friend and confidante of the PM.

This development gives new credence to the view that Israel is waiting for the Iranian elections on Friday to be over, and may in fact be coming to the decision that a massive preemptive military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities is the Jewish State’s only option to prevent a second Holocaust. In my recent novel, Damascus Countdown, I lay out a scenario of how an Israeli first strike could look, as well as what might happen if Iran draws Syria into a full-blown retaliation.

Let us not grow weary of praying for the peace of Jerusalem, and the region, according to Psalm 122:6. This is more important than ever as war clouds build on the horizon.

Here are more details:

“Iran is working round the clock to enlarge its nuclear infrastructure with the eventual aim of developing an industry capable of building up to 30 bombs a year, an Israeli minister charged on Monday,” reports Agence France Presse. “Speaking to reporters in Jerusalem, Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz said Tehran was ‘very close’ to crossing the red line laid out by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last year. But he said it was biding its time and building uranium-enrichment facilities before making the final push for weapons-grade material.”

“The Iranians are getting very close now to the red line… They have close to 200 kilos — 190 kilos (418 pounds) — of 20 percent enriched uranium,” Steinitz said. “Once they have 250 kilos, this is enough to make the final rush to 90 percent,” the level of enrichment required for a nuclear warhead, he said in a presentation to the Foreign Press Association, AFP reported.

“It is a matter of weeks or maybe two months to jump from 20 percent to 90 percent with so many centrifuges,” he said. “What they are doing now — instead of crossing the red line, they are widening and enlarging their capacity by putting in more centrifuges, faster centrifuges.”

“Iran’s aim, he charged, was to build a nuclear arsenal, not just a single bomb,” noted AFP.

“Many people are saying it’s a question of the Iranian bomb — whether they will have it or not. No. We are speaking about an Iranian arsenal.”

Steinitz also ruled out any change in policy that might result from the Iranian presidential elections which are to take place on Friday, saying the result was already known.

“Nothing is going to change. There will be, unfortunately, no significant changes because of these so-called elections because (supreme leader Ayatollah Ali) Khamenei has already won,” he said.

“He is the leader and he makes the decisions and he already made his decision to spend many billions of dollars on building this nuclear industry with only one aim,” he charged.

“The decision was already made to get nuclear weapons — you don’t spent so much money and you don’t suffer $70 billion of losses (due to international sanctions) in one year only to show that you can spin some centrifuges,” he concluded.